Plastic, Metal, or Glass
by Lady Kes
Summary: Lewis has a case, Laura has a concert, and Hathaway has a conversational tic (he says sir a lot).


He could always tell when Laura's orchestra was winding up to another concert. She was never really unfriendly, but she was a lot _more_ friendly when she was trying to butter him up so he'd buy tickets. Expensive tickets, they were, too, never the ones in the gods.

This time, they were all crouching over the body of an unfortunate footballer. He'd been found in the middle of the pitch with his head bashed in, poor sod. There were worse ways to go, but this wasn't pleasant, and the impact wound didn't look like anything Lewis'd ever seen. Laura had been musing on what it might be, but it was all just speculation until the forensics were in.

"Don't have any idea where to find an octagonal hammer," she concluded, and smiled up at him. "But I'm sure you will. You being the brilliant DI and all."

"Right, o'course, thank you," he replied, standing, and carefully did not look at Hathaway. The man'd have that carefully-not-laughing look, or possibly the carefully-not-noticing-anything look, which was worse.

"I'll tell you more after the P.M.," she declared sunnily, and they all stepped back to let the SOCOs move in.

"By the way, did I mention there's a concert coming up? Philip Glass. Let me know if you'd like any tickets," she dropped, and then disappeared to supervise the moving of the body. This time he looked at Hathaway and regretted it. It was definitely the carefully-not-noticing-anything look, though it smoothed out immediately into the neutral face that made him think he'd never play poker with the man and come out alive.

"Don't you start."

"Sir."

* * *

Later that day, he was sitting in the office, contemplating feuding footballers. The deceased hadn't had any friends in the league, so far as he could tell, nor had he any real enemies. The location of the body seemed important, but might not be. The perimortem interval was large enough to cover an entire morning of matches and their aftereffects. The weapon pattern wasn't in any of their databases. There weren't any angry partners in the picture nor any angry ex-partners.

The phone on Hathway's desk rang, pulling Lewis away from his contemplation of the best way to narrow down an entire league's worth of suspects, and he glanced up as his sergeant answered, spoke as little as possible, and then put the phone down.

"Dr. Hobson's got something for us. And I don't think it's concert tickets," Hathaway reported, and Lewis stood up with a growl.

"Keep that up an' I'm makin' you go with me," he threatened.

"Can't stand Glass, sir. Too minimalist," Hathaway said, and that was rich coming from the man who'd practically tattooed minimalist on his forehead.

* * *

"It's metal," Laura said, showing them the flake of material pulled out of the victim's hair and then the impression left on the skull. "Definitely in an octagonal pattern."

"I think that's actually an icosahedron," Hathaway murmured, and Lewis glanced at him over his shoulder.

"Read maths as well as theology, did ye?" But he was right, and it made Lewis think of something, suddenly.

"Thanks, Laura, we'll let you know if we need anything else," he said hurriedly, and left, Hathaway trailing behind him.

"Sir?"

"Football trophies, Sergeant. The victim had been playing in a league championship," he said, quickly. "Find out who was in charge of the trophies."

Hathaway immediately pulled out his mobile and arranged for someone to collect the trophies and bring them in for analysis without Lewis having to spell anything out further, which was fortunate since the Chief Super chose that moment to call him into her office and remind him of more paperwork he hadn't done. It wasn't anything he hadn't heard before, nor anything she hadn't said before, so he responded at appropriate times and hoped Hathaway was making progress with the trophies.

* * *

"So that's that then," he said, looking into the interview room at the disgruntled captain of a rival team. "Got 'im alone after the match and bashed 'im in the head with a metal football, all because of a reserved parking stall. Makes me wish it were one of those cheap plastic trophies."

"Or Glass, sir?" Hathaway said drily as they turned to go back to the office, and he looked up to see that his sergeant was clearly making a pun, and quite proud of himself too.

"Oh, god, Laura's going to expect me to go to her concert now she provided the crucial bit of evidence," he groaned.

"Most certainly, sir," Hathaway agreed, and sounded far too cheerful about it, too.

"An' just for that, you're goin' with me, Sergeant!" he decided. "Minimalist or no minimalist."

"Sir!"


End file.
